It’s good news for the Queensland economy that the Premier is expected to announce a late January or early February election today. The CCIQ September quarter Pulse Survey report notes that uncertainty around the upcoming election has affected business expectations, which are negative for the next twelve months. The significance of the contribution of election uncertainty to the weak outlook is unclear and possibly minor, but at least the election will remove any adverse impact. Also, the election will allow the Government, assuming it is re-elected, to expedite its leasing out of assets and to direct $8-9 billion of the lease proceeds to infrastructure projects that will provide a welcome injection of activity to many regions of Queensland.

Previous posts of mine that are relevant to the upcoming election include:

Queensland economic outlook for 2015

Strong Choices plan mostly good policy, but light on detail of budget impacts

Privatisation proceeds should be spent wisely